Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' initiation of a
unity pact with the Hamas extremists last week did not come out of the
blue. It was prompted by the direct contacts the Obama administration
has secretly established with the Lebanese Hizballah. Abbas reasoned
that if Washington can start a dialogue with a terrorist organization,
so too can his own PLO and Fatah.

debkafile’s
Washington sources report that the Obama administration appears to have
carried over to Lebanon the doctrine set out by the late Richard
Holbrooke for Afghanistan, whereby dialogue with Taliban should be made
the centerpiece of Washington's strategy for US troop
withdrawal. Holbrooke’s influence on Secretary of State John Kerry dated
back to his run for the presidency in 2004.

In Lebanese terms, Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah has become the
equivalent of Taliban’s Mullah Mohammad. Hizballah has scored high in
the Syrian war. Its military intervention on the side of Bashar Assad in
the last year is credited with turning the Syrian army’s fortunes
around from near defeat in 2013 to partial triumph in key areas of Syria
this year. Nasrallah is able to boast that his movement’s commitment to
the Syrian conflict is its central mission and will remain so until
rebel and al Qaeda forces are finally vanquished.

What the Hizballah leader is trying to put across, in terms of the
Holbrooke doctrine, is that like Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, he,
Nasrallah, holds the key to resolving the Syrian civil war.
The Obama administration bought this premise and decided to apply it
to broadening the rapidly progressing dialogue with Tehran to related
areas. The plan developed in Washington was to seize the momentum of the
nuclear track and ride it to a broad US-Iranian understanding that
embraces a comprehensive nuclear accord with Tehran as well as
understandings for resolving the Syrian and Lebanese questions.

Administration officials figure that Nasrallah heeds no one but the
ayatollahs in Tehran. He may talk big but he knows that his fate is in
the hands of his Iranian masters. If Iran decides it is time for him to
go, it will be curtains for him. His involvement in the Syrian war is
considered to be contingent on the strategic decisions of Iran’s
leaders. (He was a lot less confident in the winter of 2013 when
Hizballah’s home bases were being smashed in lethal suicide bombings.)

Iran also determines which weapons are supplied to the Hizballah units
fighting in Syria, in which sectors they fight and how to respond to his
pleas for reinforcements.

In Washington’s view, Hizballah’s involvement in the Syrian war has
increased its leader’s dependence on Tehran. He accordingly has little
room for maneuver in contacts with US representatives and if he turns
difficult, they are sure they can turn to Tehran to force him in line.
It is also believed in administration circles that the secret Saudi
exchanges with Tehran (first revealed by DEBKA Weekly) will eventually
produce Riyadh’s acceptance of Hizballah as a dominant factor in Syria
and Lebanon.

However, many Middle East experts find the US take on Hizballah to be
naïve and simplistic and strongly doubt that the path it has chosen
will bring Nasrallah – or Tehran - around to serving America's will or
purposes. They draw a parallel with the underlying US assumptions which
ultimately led the Palestinians-Israeli talks off track.

But expectations of the Hizballah track are high and strongly guide
the actions of President Obama, John Kerry, National Security Advisor
Susan Rice and CIA Director John Brennan. And so, in early March, the
first secret rendezvous took place in Cyprus between CIA officers and
Hizballah intelligence and security operatives.

According to a number of Mid East intelligence sources, two such
meetings have since been conducted and initial US-Hizballah
understandings reached relating to the volatile situations in Syria and
Lebanon.

Our intelligence sources add that US Ambassador to Beirut David Hale
has been in charge of preparing these meetings and implementing the
understandings reached.

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